Amani Forest Reserve, Day 3

The next day we got in the car and headed deeper into the mountains to hike the Kwamkoro forest, an untouched, first growth forest. During German colonialism in Tanzania, the East Usambaras forests were cleared for coffee, tobacco, sisal, rubber and quinine. Coffee plantations failed due to soil condition and commercial logging became the main industry. During this time, the Germans also established much of the reserved areas in the mountains and by 1942, during the British colonial era, the reserved areas had doubled in size. Today, the Amani Forest Reserve covers more than 20,000 acres. If you want to read more about the rich history of the Usambara mountains, there is plenty of information on the Amani website;
http://www.amaninature.org/about.htm

So we drove about 12k towards the Kwamkoro forest, through the beautiful, steep fields of the Eutco Tea Plantation. It is difficult to convey just how stunning the tea fields are and it was even more difficult to photograph them. Rows and rows of neatly planted crops encircled the peaks of every hill. Driving along the narrow winding roads, with walls of crops on either side and jungle all around, it felt like we had all of a sudden left Tanzania and were driving along rice patties in Vietnam.We approached a small house with nothing but a concrete bathroom stall outside. We parked the Escudo and walked up the trail into the forest. At first, the forest seemed no different than the one we hiked through the day before, but subtle differences slowly emerged. There were different ferns in this forest, taller, more feathered ferns that hung over the pathways creating a lovely, diffused light on the ground. The trees were clearly older, taller and unlike the jungle from the day before, it was their low creaking and groaning that we heard over the sounds of birds and insects. The path was obviously less traveled, with a thick layer of oversized, fallen leaves that made it feel like autumn until you looked back up at the glowing, green canopy above. This forest seemed quieter and we walked along the overgrown path listening to the wind and the crunch of our footsteps.A small path on the left side led us downhill to a small creak spotted with moss covered stones and rich, red mud. We continued gradually uphill to the viewpoint, where it felt like we had an aerial view of Korogwe town below. We ate our packed lunch, watched the hornbills fly back and forth and slowly made our way back down the path before the storm clouds rolled in overhead.